


Take My Hand (You Can Take My Whole Life Too)

by myheroesrbands



Series: BakodaFleetWeek 2020 [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Bakoda Fleet Week 2020, BakodaFleetWeek, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, One-sided pining, Pining, because what is better for one-sided pining, canon character death, or so he thinks, pounds of angst, slight warning for suicidal thoughts, this is a pining fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25853044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myheroesrbands/pseuds/myheroesrbands
Summary: “I love you.”And that made Bato freeze. His entire body stopped moving, and he thought for a moment he was going to be set on fire as a joke. Bato didn’t know how he managed to leave the ballroom but soon he found himself standing outside the large doors. Doubling over in pain, he coughed up flowers upon flowers. He fell to his knees and felt as if life was actually leaving his body.And maybe in some way, it already had.
Relationships: Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), Hakoda/Kya (Avatar)
Series: BakodaFleetWeek 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852546
Comments: 14
Kudos: 130
Collections: Bakoda Fleet Week 2020





	Take My Hand (You Can Take My Whole Life Too)

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to [colorfulmagic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorfulmagic) for falling in love with this idea while I was writing it and encouraging my angst fits. I love all of their Bakoda work and you all should definitely check it out. Title is from Can't Help Falling In Love by Elvis !! [Edited not Beta-ed hehe]

**Hanahaki Disease (noun):**

**A disease where the victim of unrequited or one-sided love begins to vomit or cough up the petals and flowers of a flowering plant growing in their lungs, which will eventually grow large enough to render breathing impossible if left untreated.**

* * *

Bato’s memory of when he could breathe freely had been fading. He remembers being 12 and breathing in the cool South Pole air with ease. He remembers penguin sledding and feeling exhilarated as the wind blew into his face, and he gulped the air in as he laughed along. He remembers when he and Hakoda first became friends and how the two of them would run in the snow and the rush he felt as the cold air filled his lungs. 

That feeling had been gone for the majority of his life now. 

When Bato was in his early twenties, he realized that he was in love with his best friend. There wasn’t a realization of grandeur, there weren’t fireworks or celebrations. Everything simply slid into place for him. Like he, ironically, could breathe easily.

He finally understood why he smiled whenever Hakoda looked his way. And why he enjoyed Hakoda’s hugs more than his own father’s. He finally understood why whenever Hakoda would ruffle up his hair, he’d blush (no longer from embarrassment but instead because he was overrun with his feelings for the other man). And why he found himself worrying about Hakoda’s well-being for significant portions of the day. 

He recognized  _ why  _ he chose to remain in his position as the Chief’s Second-In-Command when the job really wasn’t his cup of tea — it was the only way he could ensure that Hakoda didn’t do anything  _ rash.  _

_ Realizing you’re in love with your best friend shouldn’t be painful _ , Bato thought bitterly when the flowers had been resting in his chest for a week. His breathing had become incredibly more ragged and doing simple tasks was starting to take its toll on him. He’d go hunting and would be trying to keep up with a polar bear dog and would find that he’d have to stop every few minutes to hag out a few petals. 

The petals never came out in lumps ( _ at first) _ , so for the time being, Bato was safe to continue his bimonthly healing sessions. With few waterbenders left in the Southern Water Tribe because of Fire Nation raids, the ones that  _ could  _ heal would use their ability in whatever way they could. From the time that Bato realized he was no longer coughing up spit, but instead small pink flowers, he’d been seeing healers every second full moon. 

The routine they had established worked for years. It kept him from coughing up clumps of flowers and protected his throat from the scratchy sensation that spitting up the flowers brought on. His lungs would be lighter and although that feeling only lasted for the first two weeks after his session, he cherished it greatly. 

In the time that passed between the two weeks of freedom and his next healing session, he’d try his hardest to keep his condition secret from both Hakoda and the other warriors. He grew to view the effort as a challenge and would only hide himself physically when he was terribly sick from the cold weather. 

***

“Are you okay?” Hakoda had asked one time he was feeling particularly ill and as though he’d never leave his bed again in his current lifetime. 

Bato had coughed from his position where only his hair could be seen above the extra layer of furs he’d been using to keep warm. He pulled back his left hand from his mouth and registered the soft feeling of a flower in his hand and groaned loudly. 

“Get out,” he croaked, voice sore from the flower that had crawled its way up his throat and scratched at the back of his mouth. The flower joined about five others that had made their way out of his body in the last hour near his stomach. Despite how much his body was sweating, he was shivering from cold and praised Tui and La for the chill so that he would not be compelled to shift the pelts completely off of his body. 

There was shuffling somewhere behind Bato’s head, and he felt more than he heard Hakoda’s physical presence near his head. “Bato,” the man started softly and Bato scoffed which threw him into another coughing fit. Soon enough, another flower had emerged from his body, this one littered with red blood dots. 

His heart pounded in his chest. He hadn’t had bloody petals since the first time he’d tried to go a month without a healing session. He couldn’t ease his quickening heart beat with Hakoda sitting right near him so Bato raised the pelts to cover his entire head. 

“Really?” Hakoda whispered and Bato’s heart ached, now from a different emotion — longing. Bato exhaled heavily to himself and peaked one eye above the pelts to look at his best friend. An uneasy smile covered Hakoda’s face at the sight of Bato’s eye and Bato coughed again, diving back under the pelts.

“Need anything?” Hakoda asked and raised an arm to where he thought Bato’s shoulder would be. Despite the several layers of pelts between his shoulder and Hakoda’s hand, Bato felt his skin ignite like when another log is added to the fire to keep it going. The heat in his arm combined with his beating heart and queasy stomach made Bato want to sink into the earth. 

Until then, another flower made its way up his throat. 

“Nothing,” his voice was raspy and Hakoda obviously felt that was more than enough to confirm the exact opposite of his question. Retracting his arm from Bato’s pelt-covered shoulder, Hakoda moved quickly. There was the sound of sloshing water and in a moment, a cup was being shoved next to Bato’s head. 

A groan escaped Bato, and he sat up, making sure to hide any flowers under the covers. The water was cool as it slid down his throat and Bato was secretly grateful for the temporary mitigation of his sore throat. 

He sighed contently and turned to make eye contact with Hakoda. A pit pooled in his stomach, and he felt the familiar tickling of a cough as he took in the fine lines beginning to don his friends face. The gorgeous blue eyes starting at him seemed to stare right through him — uncovering every one of his secrets. 

He fought to keep the coughs at bay and luckily succeeded.

Crisis averted. 

For the time being. 

***

When Kya came into their lives, crisis seemed to loom around every corner. Sure, he’d realized he’d been in love with Hakoda but it wasn’t until he saw Hakoda kissing Kya, hugging Kya, and laughing with Kya that Bato realized just how in love with Hakoda he was. 

And boy was he in too deep. 

In situations prior to Kya’s presence, Bato could calm himself out of fits. He could go through breathing exercises, he could extricate his feelings from situations, and he could  _ walk away.  _ That proved difficult when Hakoda decided he was going to wed her. 

“Okay I need your help going over carvings,” Hakoda had burst into Bato’s home one evening. The wind was howling especially loud that night and Bato, sat by his fire, had just dumped a few flowers into the burning flame. 

Ever the calming presence in Hakoda’s life, Bato didn’t panic when Hakoda burst in and immediately began rambling about what would be a good carving and what animal the carving should come from. Instead, Bato turned his body away from his fire and watched Hakoda stamp across the floor. 

Bato’s breathing was rough, and he was pretty sure that if he saw his face, he’d have sunken eyes. His day hadn’t gone well — he had to send more letters off to Earth Kingdom generals reminding them that  _ no, the Southern Water Tribe would not be fully investing in the war just yet  _ and because of that stress, he’d been pretty sure he picked up  _ something  _ and had been coughing and sneezing for hours. 

Unable to contain himself, Hakoda’s voice continued to carry throughout the small space and Bato, ever the one for sentimentality, allowed himself to think for just a moment;  _ if it were  _ him  _ that Hakoda was marrying would he be this nervous.  _

He shook that thought out of his mind and spoke. “Have you tried hunting yet?” It was a simple question, and Hakoda really shouldn’t have turned around with that scandalized look on his face but Bato’s lips pulled into a small smirk all the same. 

“You’re  _ here  _ in my home, when you haven’t hunted for the bones yet?” Bato stood shakily before moving to take a look outside his door. “Well we can’t go tonight, the snow’s too bad. Tomorrow?” And when he turned, Hakoda was still looking at him with that shocked face. 

“I hope there’s nothing on my face Hakoda,” he drawled out and Hakoda shook his head before it seemed he registered what Bato had said. 

“Gone hunting?” Hakoda’s voice was abnormally high, and he’d never admit it to anyone but Bato found it sweet that there were some glimpses of Hakoda that only he got to see. 

It made his stomach flip into knots. 

And petals tickle his throat. 

“Of course I haven’t gone hunting Bato. I don’t even know what I’m going to  _ carve  _ for her!” And okay, Bato knew the yelling wasn’t directed  _ at  _ him but that didn’t stop him from flinching slightly. Regaining his composure meant him moving away so that Hakoda wouldn’t see his face. 

He moved into his kitchen to grab some seal jerky he kept away for occasions like this one. Tossing one to Hakoda and keeping a few more wrapped in his hand, he moved back to sit in front of his fire. In a moment, he felt Hakoda dropping next to him and taking a bite of his snack. 

“You know you should be taking this slowly right? It’s not going to come all at once,” Bato spoke softly, while ignoring the light fluttering in his stomach. If he was talking about their relationship or Hakoda working on a carving, he wasn’t entirely sure. 

“You’re always taking things slow. I can’t figure out how you do it.” Bato could feel Hakoda’s eyes on him, and he felt as though he were a hunted animal being inspected for his meat. Despite how uncomfortable the gaze made him, Bato reveled in the attention, knowing it only happened rarely. 

Bato blew out a breath, looking into the flames and allowing the quiet to engulf the both of them. Hakoda chewed on more seal jerky after Bato handed it to him and also reveled in the silence. 

Minutes later, Bato spoke up. “I take things slow because you’re always going so fast.” His voice was almost a whisper when he continued, “Someone has to be there to keep you on the ground instead of in the clouds.” Hakoda chuckled from beside Bato and his lips tugged into a smile while his chest prickled. 

He reached to scratch at his chest, a futile attempt at easing the pain but an attempt nonetheless. 

“Okay fine,” Hakoda settled, moving to rest his back on the floor. Bato was lucky that he was able to will himself from stealing a look but his brain did some of the work imagining what Hakoda looked like and Bato felt another tickle in his throat. 

_ Fuck,  _ he thought to himself as reached up to grab a few petals that made their way up his throat. He quickly moved his hand back to his lap, dropping the petals between his legs. 

“You okay?” he heard Hakoda ask and Bato exhaled heavily once more. He was certain that if he gave an absolutely honest answer to that question, Hakoda wouldn’t like it. 

“Fine.” He replied. And that was the end of that. 

***

It would have been the end of the Kya conversation in general if it weren’t for Kya confronting him at one point during the carving process. 

Bato didn’t have a problem with Hakoda’s betrothed. Really. He just tried his hardest to distance himself from her to keep his lungs from responding negatively to her relationship with the man he was in love with. More for her sake than his own, he tried to convince himself, but he knew that he was sparing himself the pain of knowing Hakoda was preparing to build his own life. A life where Bato wouldn’t be as needed as before. 

He’d been delivering fresh animal skins to families that needed them for the coming winter when she had spotted him, halfway to his neighbor’s door but still far enough away that he wouldn’t be spotted just yet. 

“Bato!” She called, her hair flowing behind her. Bato had always thought she was beautiful. And if he were to be completely honest, she’d been the only woman he’d ever come across in his life that quite literally took his breath away. 

With only two thick skins still in his arms, Bato was sure that Kya could see the way he rolled his eyes, and he regretted the movement right after he did it. The usual smile she wore on her face had dissipated into a frown and Bato wanted nothing more than to find Hakoda to put it back. She shouldn’t have been frowning when she  _ had  _ what Bato wanted. 

It probably came off as insensitive but Bato’s love for Hakoda was literally _killing_ him, and he couldn’t help it if he felt a bit of ~~anger~~ jealousy toward Kya because of what she had. He kept those feelings to himself, but they were still there nonetheless. 

“Something wrong?” she asked, ever one for getting to the bottom of problems as soon as they arose. It was what made her such a valuable voice to have when Hakoda seemed to be thinking of doing something reckless. Having to share  _ that  _ role with Hakoda’s wife made Bato feel like a great weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. 

Normally he’d be able to push through his feelings of jealousy but right now they weren’t trying to stop his pea-brained best friend from marching to the Fire Nation and ending the war, so he allowed the feeling to overtake him. Reveling in it for just a moment. And then releasing a rough breath.

“Nothing. Is there something you need?” he asked. She stared at him for a moment and if he weren’t already used to having to look down at people, his neck would have begun to ache but instead he quirked his head to the right inquisitively and met her gaze head on. “If there’s something you want to talk about…”

He left the rest of the sentence up for interpretation on purpose but did not expect Kya to huff and grab his left bicep and start pulling him away from his neighbor’s home. She kept dragging him until they were standing behind Hak- no Kanna’s igloo where no children could interrupt whatever conversation she was insistent on them having.

Never one to beat around the bush, Kya crossed her arms and asked, “Do you love him?” 

Bato had never been asked that question before. People simply  _ assumed  _ that it was Hakoda that had led to his flower lungs. Bato never felt compelled to quell the rumors, so he watched as they had their occasional flare up in the village every few years or so. 

“Wha- What?” His voice shook as he spoke, and he was vaguely aware of the cough itching its way up his throat. He willed it to stay down — using his usual trick of  _ he doesn’t love you back, don’t waste your time  _ — to keep the flowers at bay. Usually it worked but Kya was staring into his eyes with the fiercest look and Bato was scared she thought he’d ruin their marriage because of his feelings for her betrothed. 

That would never happen but Bato let his mind wander anyway. 

“Don’t lie. I can tell. Do you love him Bato? Hakoda?” She looked like she wouldn’t take anything other than the truth as an answer and Bato resigned himself to permanent, lifelong humiliation before he dropped his head and nodded, his chin racking against his chest. 

He heard a sigh, of relief he couldn’t tell. But he refused to move his eyes back up to meet Kya’s and was surprised when she reached a hand under his jaw to raise his head. 

“It’s fine,” she whispered. “I promise I don’t think any different of you. I just needed to know.” At that moment, Bato knew Kya was the only other person that would  _ ever  _ be worthy of Hakoda. She’d put up with a lot of shit in her years prior to their courtship, and she would put up with a lot more shit in the years after. But Bato knew that if she thought  _ this  _ was okay, she was going to be just fine. 

“I need you to tell me,” she started but was cut off by Bato’s head retracting from her hand to wrap into his arm as he coughed into the sleeve. The skin of the fur coat he wore did little to actually catch the petals that left his throat, so he turned away, his back to Kya’s face, as the petals continued to fall. 

He knew she’d seen them. He knew she’d definitely hate him then but, oh wait her hands were coming to wrap around his waist, and he was still coughing, but she was softly saying “Oh Bato,” into his coat, and he wanted nothing more than to devote his entire life to making sure this woman had everything she ever wanted or needed. 

He understood why Hakoda had fallen so deeply in love with her. 

When the coughing subsided, and he was sweating for a few moments, Kya was in his face again. Her eyes were filled with concern and if he were a fool he would have thought she had been crying. 

_ For me?  _ He asked himself but quickly threw the thought away. He was in love with the man she’d chosen to live the rest of her days with. There was no way she’d feel any sympathy for him.

He stepped away from her, eyes a little wider with horror at the thought that she’d probably never wanted to know his true feelings after all. What if she just wanted to make sure he stayed away from Hakoda?

But he’d never do that. He couldn’t fathom a life without Hakoda. A life without his smile, his stupid jokes, or his thick-headedness. That was a sad life that Bato  _ never  _ wanted to think of. 

“I know I shouldn’t but please.. Please don’t make me leave him alone,” his voice came out as a plea, and he watched her eyebrows furrow in confusion. 

“Bato no.” She was walking toward him, and he was taking another step back before his back hit the wall of the igloo. He internally groaned and cursed the spirits for their lack of mercy on him. 

“I want you to know that I would never try to keep you two apart.” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing but the words were coming out of her mouth, and he definitely should keep listening. “I know it hurts to love him. I can see it. But I love him so much Bato. I love him with every fiber of my being.

“He loves me too,” she whispered and Bato’s heart broke. He would keep his feelings at bay. He would try. 

“I’m sorry.” he heard himself speak. He would keep his feelings at bay. He would try.

If only for her. 

***

Bato had made it through the entire process of helping Hakoda find the right betrothal necklace [which ended up not being as difficult as Hakoda made it out to be], he’d made it through the entire proposal ceremony, and right now he was trying to make his way through the wedding ceremony. 

It was larger than Southern weddings usually are, with the elders and their fellow warriors showing their faces to bless the union. Bato was grateful for the extra bodies around the unnecessarily large igloo he and Hakoda had built for Hakoda’s family. It meant he could be lost in the crowd of people and not have to be tied to either Kya or Hakoda’s sides. He loved them. Truly. But being around them right now would make him throw up.

And it wouldn’t be the first time his body had responded to their union that way. He’d been incredibly nauseous the last week and it had only been  _ one week  _ since his last healing session. Vomiting had led to petals (and a few full flowers) leaving his body and although it made him anxious, he still found room to be happy for his friends. 

They deserved to be happy. Bato knew that. And although he let his thoughts travel down selfish paths, he knew he never stood a chance.

_Spirits,_ _he still didn’t know how the flowers hadn’t taken his breath away._

And when he saw Hakoda and Kya like this, happy and in love, he wanted nothing more than for the roots to engulf both of his lungs. He lived in a constant state of agony but if it meant he wouldn’t have to see the man he loved be happy with someone else, someone that wasn’t him, Bato would take the final leap. He knew that even  _ that  _ was a selfish thought as well. He couldn’t think so lowly of himself when they were  _ at war  _ — when the world around them was about to fall apart but for the foreseeable future, this was the only taste of happiness he was going to get. 

That didn’t stop him from having the thoughts though. 

Oh, and now he was coughing again. He maneuvered his way through the crowd as quickly as he could. He paid no attention to the worried glances that followed him out of the house. He shrugged off the stray hand that found his shoulder as he pushed his way out of the doorway. 

He didn’t make it very far, but he was hidden behind another igloo when he fell to his knees and coughed up large petals. His knees were cold from the snow and the wind was racking across his face as the tears that slipped from his eyes immediately dried onto his skin. His hands weren’t gloved, so he kept them on his knees as he hacked out more and more petals. 

When his body settled down, he was still heaving and occasionally coughing up clumps of petals. His head was screaming at him to do  _ something  _ to stop the pain while his lungs were yelling at him to  _ ease the pain. _ He hastily covered the flowers about a hands' length deep before shakily standing and stumbling his way to the healers tent. He was too tall to fit through the door, but he hadn’t registered that, so he hit the top of his head against the top of the doorway. He convulsed in the snow, and he coughed up more petals before his body stilled. 

The three healers that were available for emergencies rushed to get him inside. Placing him on the nearest cot, they got to work on first warming his body, and then his lungs. 

All three of them worked through the night and were glad when he would groan or open his eyes weakly. Although they were small signs, the healers knew that any movement meant the man was still alive. 

The next morning, one of the healers was running her hands along the lower half of Bato’s torso when he was able to register there was cold water on him. He shot up quickly when he realized he was  _ not  _ in his own home but instead in the healers' hut. 

“What happened?” His voice was  _ gone.  _ There were two healers in the room with him, and they shared a look when he spoke. 

“You showed up here, hit your head, and passed out. It looks like you had a  _ bad  _ fit last night,” the healer who had removed her hands from his chest spoke. He let out what attempted to be a groan before falling back against the cot he was on. 

His mind tried to provide him with information of what had happened the night before. He remembered being at Hakoda and Kya’s wedding ceremony. He remembered the way they had held each other through the entire night. He remembered the way Hakoda looked like he’d hang the moon if Kya asked. He remembered being sick to his stomach and having to leave, coughing up petals in the snow and then waking up right where he was. 

He felt a slight pain in his chest and reached to rub at the middle of his chest. His eyes flittered around the room. He’d been in that exact spot only a week before, but he noticed how  _ empty  _ the room felt now. 

“Something wrong?” he managed to croak out and the male healer in the room, Vonak [Bato thought he was cute and honestly he’d court him if his  _ lungs  _ weren’t attached to another person], stood to leave the room. 

“We need to talk,” the female healer spoke. If Bato were a younger, less-wise man, he’d be demanding answers — he hated how cryptic they were being — but he was older and less prone to  _ demanding  _ answers and more likely to wait for them.

A beat later, the woman was speaking again. “I know this is hard but you almost died last night.” He sighed to himself. Dancing with death was an everyday thing with his condition. It was the most severe case of  _ flower lungs,  _ as the village called them, in decades and with every day that he continued to live a life of unrequited love he was edging closer to his end. 

“I know you don’t want to hear this but, getting your feelings under control is the only way you will live.” She paused to take a seat, her hands fiddling in her lap as she averted her eyes away from Bato’s questioning gaze. “The raids have gotten worse,” her voice was barely above a whisper and Bato felt his heart drop to his stomach. 

He knew the raids were bad but if the healers were finally feeling the strain, then there were going to be problems. The Southern Water Tribe could lose all of their healers, he deduced from her statement, and if that happens, he’d die the next time he had a fit this bad. 

If he could, he would have buried his face in his hands. He settled for clenching his eyes shut and inhaling deeply in his nose and out his mouth to prevent tears of frustration from escaping him. 

“I can help you,” she said and in a moment Bato was all ears again. Ready to learn how he could take his life back. 

***

It took time, a lot of mental training, and experiencing the deaths of all of his healers, but over the years, Bato learned to suppress his feelings for Hakoda. 

There was always an aching pain at the back of his mind to remind him that there were feelings still around for the other man but in the end, Bato managed to survive the strongest test to his feelings — Hakoda and Kya having children.

And while that may have seemed like a good thing four days prior, his heart  _ ached  _ with yearning as Hakoda and the children dealt with the loss of Kya, their matriarch. 

Although he and Kya weren’t as close as he and Hakoda were, Bato grew to cherish Kya’s friendship greatly. There were few adults in the village that Bato was actually  _ close  _ with but Hakoda and Kya were the ones he loved the most. He’d been taking Kya’s death pretty hard — the first night, he found that for the first time in a long while, breathing was incredibly difficult for him. His lungs, although only half-populated (as Bato liked to downplay the situation) with flowers, seemed to have filled overnight. The pit that had settled into his stomach was unmoving, and he was once again forced to face the realities of war — people died. Even the people he loved. 

_ Especially  _ the people he loved, Bato came to realize. 

Hakoda had been taking the loss fairly hard. He hadn’t left his room in two days, he’d only been consuming alcohol and slices of seal jerky, and he’d taken to throwing unpleasant comments at Bato. 

Bato understood that the man was grieving. And in his own way, Bato was as well but as the kids were with Kanna and Hakoda continued to hole himself up in his home, the pressure of doing his job made Bato almost feel like a ticking time bomb.

When he would explode? No one knew.

As the days passed, Bato began to further repress both his feelings for Hakoda  _ and  _ his grief over Kya. 

Before he knew it, it’d been a month since Kya’s death. The children had resumed their lessons, Hakoda was very slowly easing himself back into his work, and Bato had started coughing up petals again. 

“Damnit,” he swore to himself one morning as he stood over his roaster. He’d been preparing to roast a fish he had caught the previous day but the light smoke erupting from the bowl tickled his nose and a particularly vicious sneeze escaped him. 

Dropping three petals into the bowl.

He flinched back a bit before moving to quickly extract the petals from the food and then dropping them on the floor. He coughed as more smoke made its way down his throat causing more petals to leave his body. A sound of displeasure escaped him when the coughing subsided, and he’d burnt his fish. 

_ Well isn’t this just great,  _ he thought to himself as he went over why the petals decided to make a return. 

He’d been helping Hakoda tremendously the last month — caring for him and his family, taking on the extra load of work that being provisional Chief brought forth, and doing what he could to help the village children as he usually did. While he thought that he’d been successfully keeping his feelings at bay, seeing Hakoda at his worst only made Bato fall more in love with the man. 

_ And that was bad.  _

He grunted as he bent down to grab the petals from the ground, throwing them in with the burnt fish and watching as they dissipated in with the flames. Bato knows he shouldn’t let his feelings get in the way of things, especially when their tribe was still reeling from the rawness of Kya’s death, but he was selfish. Bato was a selfish man with selfish desires and apparently his lungs caught on to his feelings before his mind did. 

He groaned to himself. 

_ Not again.  _

***

He’d managed to keep his feelings  _ mostly  _ in check for the two years between Kya’s death and Hakoda making the final decision to take the Southern warriors into the Earth Kingdom to fight the war. It wasn’t easy but the burning flame that had begun to grow had to continuously be extinguished to the point where it was only a small blaze. 

As the men set sail out to the Chuje Islands first, Bato couldn’t help how often he tended to steal looks over at Hakoda when they were in war meetings. It seemed like a small thing, but he knew the meetings would be reviewed for him by Hakoda at some point in the night. So he constantly found himself stealing glances at Hakoda’s jawline, or the furrow of his eyebrows, or the way his hand came to rest on his chin when he was thinking too hard about something. 

_ Fuck,  _ he thought to himself as he tore his eyes away from Hakoda for the fifth time in the last thirty minutes. He didn’t know how much longer he could-

Oh, and there was the tickling in his chest. 

_ Fuck,  _ he thought again as he stood to leave and averted his eyes away from the questioning glimpses he spotted from the other men. Hakoda made a questioning noise but Bato didn’t get to respond as he was already out of the door and moving above deck to cough petals into the sea. 

While Hakoda had known  _ something  _ was wrong with Bato, he was never able to figure out what exactly the problem was, and he understood that Bato would tell him the truth when he was ready. 

Just like every other time he thought of how Hakoda respected his privacy, Bato’s heart swelled. And five more petals crawled out of his lungs. He watched the petals drop into the sea, lost to whatever animal would come across them. 

He didn’t know how long he had been standing on the deck and the only thing he consciously registered was the wind blowing his hair in his face and every which way, but he did know he didn't want to return to the meeting. The occasional wave brought water droplets up to his face but still he remained in his position leaning over the ship, eyes wandering the ocean as they moved forth. 

Soon enough, he heard footsteps joining him and suddenly he was hyper-aware of every water droplet on his face, of where every one of his fingers were, and of the feeling of flowers resettling themselves in his chest. He reached to rub at his chest offhandedly and felt more than he saw the head next to his own turn to face him. 

“What is this?” he heard his best friend ask. “Because, and I know this is a little too late in the game to be asking this, but I can’t have you going into battle if you’re a liability, Bato. I need to know right now.” Bato sighed, running over the possible ways this conversation could go. 

Every scenario that crossed his mind left him being underutilized in the battlefield. And most importantly, it left Hakoda without the added protection of having  _ Bato  _ beside him to cover for him. 

“I have it under control,” his voice was rough as he spoke, the rumble coming from deep within his chest, and he finally turned to face the shorter man. 

“No you don’t,” Hakoda replied firmly. His lips were pressed in a thin line and there were already worry lines beginning to form on the man’s forehead. 

Bato wanted to kiss them away. 

At that thought, Bato felt fluttering in his chest and took a few deep breaths to control the petals that wanted to break free. Hakoda seemed to pick up on the effort and his frown deepened. 

“You don’t have  _ this,”  _ he waved his hands in front of Bato’s body and continued, “under control. If you did,” his eyebrow rose and Bato felt the petals reaching farther up his throat. Hakoda went on, “you wouldn’t be walking out of meetings. You wouldn’t be  _ here  _ leaning over the deck.” 

Bato’s chest was on fire. If he didn’t cough up the petals soon, he’d vomit them up later. He gave Hakoda his best pleading eye before running away from him and back below deck to his own quarters. There was a bucket sitting beside his bed where he tossed any petals he coughed up during the night. Reaching for it and falling to his knees in the process, Bato heaved up the larger petals that escaped his body. When he was done retching, he rested his head against the cot he used to rest. 

It had finally begun to set in for him that now that they were setting sail, it was going to be increasingly more difficult to hide his condition from Hakoda.

And that made him reach into the bucket again, this time a few full-bloom flowers making their way out of his body.

***

Bato managed to keep his secret from Hakoda for a year and a half and only a few of the warriors had caught wind to his condition. They had either seen him drop petals at some point on their ships, or they noticed the way he always coughed into the water. Bato had stopped burning his petals long ago, knowing that dropping petals into a burning fire after dinner would not help his case. 

Somehow, as his left hand flew up in flames, he wished he had. He wished that he’d watched the petals sizzle more often. Wished that the fire would encase his lungs and stop the flowers from blooming. If it stopped him from breathing as well, he wouldn’t complain. 

He watched with unconcealed horror as the firebender he’d been trying to fend off targeted more fire at his body — the fire now landing on his shoulder and upper chest. He finally found the willpower to push his body  _ away  _ from the firebender, and he heard the continued sounds of grunts in his ears. His breathing was far more ragged than it had ever been, and he felt the pain from the fire he had yet to attempt to put out — his tunic was now half gone — spread downward to his lower torso. 

Making it across the large set of rocks separating the trees from the sand proved to be exceptionally difficult, so Bato settled on hiding behind one of them to assess the damage that had been caused. 

With his skin now not on fire but smoking from the burns, Bato was to see clearly what had been done. The skin on his hand was burnt red and as his eyes and right hand trailed up his arm, he found his heart was beating so fast he thought it would burst right out of his chest. The shock from the injury and the adrenaline boosting through his body caused him to collapse, his head falling against the rock he was behind _. _ __

As his awareness was uneasy, Bato didn’t realize that he’d been coughing petals both onto his chest and onto the ground. He did recognize the firm grip of someone’s arms surrounding his body and picking him up (bridal style? He couldn’t tell) and the slight jostle that came with being carried in another person's arms. 

His head lolled to the right side and into a firm chest. He opened his eyes only partially and was able to see two blue beads moving across the man's head. A noise escaped him as he felt more flowers work their way up his throat and slid across his tongue while they dropped somewhere he didn’t care to look. 

Soon enough he was being placed on a soft structure and the only things he heard were the voices of women and that of a man before he fell into unconsciousness.

When he awoke, he recognized the browns and greens on the ceiling and deduced that he was still in the Earth Kingdom. His eyes darted around the room, and he spotted one woman standing near a doorway and Hakoda sitting on his side. Hakoda’s face was contorted in confusion and Bato wanted to reach up and rid his face of the clear worry. Instead, he resorted to lying in wait for either of them to speak. 

It took several moments but in time, Hakoda whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me?” Usually Bato would have known what he was talking about from the moment the words had left Hakoda’s mouth but Bato was a little drowsy and his mind was still catching up to all of the things around him. 

“Tell you what exactly?” His voice was groggy and his throat was incredibly dry as if…

And then it hit him full force. 

He shot up out of the bed quicker than he should have (his body protested in kind) and he felt his stomach drop. It was a terribly bad habit, but he checked on the floor and in his bed to see if there were any petals in sight. Finding none, he settled back on the bed, still unaware of the bandaging on his left side, and looked at Hakoda questionably. 

“Tell you what,” realizing how scratchy his voice was, Bato reached for the cup of water on the stand next to the bed. Hakoda looked up at him, eyes red, and Bato wanted to fall into a pit. 

“Flower lungs, Bato.” The whisper was harsh, like the cold howling wind of the darkest winter nights at home. Bato would have enjoyed the nostalgia brought on if not for the circumstances under which it came about. 

Bato looked around helplessly for the woman that was in the room and when she was nowhere to be found, he resigned himself to looking down at his lap —  _ finally  _ noticing the bandaging on his left hand and  _ finally  _ acknowledging the pain in his left side. 

He winced in pain and cradled his left arm in his right. Hakoda shot out of his seat and came to the other side of the bed but paused when Bato flinched away. 

“I’ve had it for as long as I can remember,” Bato started, still holding his left arm and wondering just what the hell had happened. He positioned himself to sit back on the cot with his back to the wall. “It’s why I was away on some nights when you needed me.”

He couldn’t look at Hakoda. He couldn’t bear to see the expressions that would cross his face — hurt, betrayal, pity? Instead, he focused on starting to unravel the bandage on his hand. Seeing the scarred and burned skin, he immediately rewrapped the bandaged. Tightly. If only to feel even  _ more  _ pain. 

“Who is it?” Hakoda asked. Bato could see Hakoda’s hands that were near his own thigh, but he still refused to raise his eyes. 

Opting to ignore the question, Bato asked, “How bad is it?” He was now looking at Hakoda, but he raised his arm quickly to make sure the man knew what he meant. 

“They say you need to stay here a few weeks.” Hakoda was fiddling with his thumbs and averting his eyes now. It was a habit he had picked up from Sokka when he was young and Hakoda couldn’t crack it. Bato’s lip quirked up slightly before falling. Twiddling thumbs meant bad news. “We can’t stay that long.” 

_ Ahhh,  _ Bato thought. He understood what that meant. 

“You’re leaving,” Bato said and Hakoda flinched at the words. Bato logged that in his mind. For what? He wasn’t sure, but he definitely needed to make note of it. 

A bitterness began to sit in his stomach as Hakoda nodded. Bato knew that they wouldn’t be able to bring him along, but he still wanted to go anyway. He wanted to make sure  _ he  _ was there to look over Hakoda’s shoulder because no one else was competent enough to fulfill his duties. And yet here he was, watching his love walk away from him. 

Somehow this hurt more than the night Hakoda had gotten married. Watching him leave hurt him more than watching him love someone else and Bato wondered why did it have to be  _ him  _ that was fated with the deadly lungs. 

Nothing stopped his voice from gaining in thickness and while he would have normally detested crying in front of Hakoda, crying was better than him coughing or sneezing up flowers, so he chose to settle. 

“When will you go?”

“Tonight.” Hakoda’s voice shook as he spoke and again, Bato noted this strange response in the back of his mind. 

“I hate to leave you,” he said and began to raise his arm but thought better of it. Bato watched the conflicted emotions cross Hakoda’s face, never resting long enough for him to put a name on them until he settled on blank. 

Blank was horrible. 

“We’ll send for you,” and now Hakoda sounded as if he were reading from a letter. Bato wanted him to be  _ honest  _ because apparently he wasn’t. When he lied, Hakoda usually pursed his lips as though he were thinking. Bato knew better. He knew Hakoda better than anyone in their entire tribe. 

Bato winced in pain again and Hakoda noticed. Bato guessed he stood to go for the woman and knowing Hakoda, there was no way Bato was going to be able to stop him. 

It didn’t take long for the woman to enter the room and begin bandaging his arm to apply a salve that would ease the pain. Bato let her get to work, his mind drifting to the now gone man who was either the cause or the solution to most of the problems in his life. 

Bato chuckled, a flower resting on his hand. At the sight of the flower, he felt as if he could cry. Instead he smiled sweetly, choosing to ignore the ache in his chest. 

***

For the first time in his life, Bato was able to realize just how heavy his lungs were. It wasn’t that it wasn’t noticeable before. It was just that there were other things to worry about. Namely, how the hell he was going to survive the  _ war.  _ Not whether his own body would physically survive. 

Hakoda had just been taken away from the prison they were being held at near the Fire Nation palace and Bato wondered just how long would it take for this war to end. The suspense would kill him. Maybe even literally. 

The days melded into one another and sooner than he expected, he’d marked their thirtieth day in the prison on the wall. They’d lost five men to the interrogations that the Fire Nation guards insisted on putting them through. If not for Tyro, Bato wouldn’t have been able to stay sane throughout the entire time. 

He’d grown exceptionally close to the man in their short time imprisoned together. Close enough that Bato had told him about his condition. And while that may have been an irrational decision at the time, Bato felt as though his time was waning. The weight in his chest was growing heavier. He was no longer coughing up individual petals. There were full-blossom flowers leaving his body, and he resigned himself to only speaking about it once. 

He knew the tribesmen noticed. He knew they knew what the disease was. He also knew they had their [probably accurate] suspicions of whom the subject of his one-sided affection was. 

It was the thirtieth day and Bato and Tyro were conversing quietly when he felt an aching pain in his chest, almost as if he were losing the ability to breathe. Hunching his body over wasn’t difficult. Coughing up the flowers  _ was _ and his throat burned while more flowers fell to the floor. Blood littered the pink petals and Bato groaned before heaving up more petals. Tyro was there to provide a comforting hand on his back and Bato could do nothing more than signal a thumbs up in thanks. 

“Hey you!” he heard a guard yell and there was shuffling as he suspected the men surrounding him moved to create space between him and the prison bars where the guard was standing. “Stop that racket!” He yelled angrily and Bato paid no attention as his lungs screamed at him to  _ get the flowers out.  _

“I said stop it!” The man was somehow yelling louder and then there was the sound of jangling keys, the bars being slid open, and hard footsteps against the door. Before he could understand what was happening, Bato was being forcefully raised to his feet. 

With his head still in his chest, a few flowers were still falling from his mouth. It sounded as though he were chuckling every time he coughed so the guard said, “Something funny?” He pushed Bato to the wall by his left shoulder, and he hissed in pain. 

“Nothing,” he clenched out, trying to keep from coughing into the man’s face as he lifted his head to make eye contact with him. Every guard here seemed to be so  _ angry  _ all the time and Bato wondered if they’d ever laughed at anything in their life. Now was no exception. The man’s lips were shaped in a frown which, judging by the lines donning his face, seemed to be something he did often. 

The man tsked before releasing Bato’s shoulder. Taking a step away from Bato, he looked around at the other warriors in the cell with him. Sat on the ground was Tyro who was sitting calmly. 

“What are you looking at old man?”

Tyro didn’t respond and Bato wanted to scream at him to do something, anything, that would stop what he instinctively knew would come next. 

And in a moment, Tyro was being dragged away from their cell. Bato felt an intense sense of gratitude and sorrow for the man. The guards didn’t know he was an earthbender yet so Bato figured he’d be alright but any time spent away with the guards was time that should have been spent safely holed up in the cell. 

He slid back down to the floor and moved the flowers to make a pile between his legs. Waiting for the garbage to come around would probably take longer now that the guard had Tyro. 

Bato let his head fall back against the wall, and he sighed to himself. This process, waiting for the war to end, had the potential to kill him. 

Then, his thoughts drifted to Hakoda. Hakoda who had been badly injured when they were detained. Hakoda who had still tried to keep good spirits for the men for the few days that he’d been with them. Hakoda whose hope that everything would work out, that his kids would end this war, was the only thing keeping him from giving up entirely. 

Spirits be damned, he loved that man with everything he had. He coughed up another flower at the thought and smiled sadly. 

***

“Tell me you know where Chief Hakoda of the Water Tribe is?” 

Bato sighed to himself before pointing in the direction of the man in question. The war had been over for a week. It had been an entirely too long week since Avatar Aang defeated Firelord Ozai. 

And right now Bato was standing near the refreshments table at a banquet that welcomed people of all four nations to the Fire Nation Palace as the newly-crowned Firelord Zuko wanted to host an event that would bring the nations together. 

Bato had his reservations to the idea. The main one being all the people he  _ knew  _ would be fawning over Hakoda. As he caught a glimpse of the man entertaining a group of Earth Kingdom nobles, Bato’s heart yearned to be there, at his side. When Hakoda made eye contact with Hakoda, he felt his lips pull up into a smile although he guessed it probably looked more like a grimace because soon enough, Hakoda was excusing himself from the group and making his way over to Bato. 

_ Here goes everything _ , he thought to himself. 

“Hey you,” Hakoda smiled cheekily at Bato when he spoke and Bato, not for the first time in his life, wished Hakoda would smile like that more often. “I don’t know if it’s the rules but the second-in-command should  _ not  _ be sulking. Let alone sulking by these horrendous refreshments.” Hakoda stared down at the table where fire nation treats sat. It’d been entirely too long since they last had Water Tribe food and Bato could tell all the time away was finally catching up to him. 

Bato chuckled softly, biting back a cough that would probably erupt a flower. 

“They’re not that bad when you try them,” he smirked and raised the hotcake in his hand up to Hakoda’s lips to taste. Hakoda sighed before taking a bite and humming an inquisitive sound.

“Okay now  _ that  _ is the best thing I’ve tasted all night,” he said once he’d finished eating the bite. In true Hakoda fashion, he grabbed the hotcake Bato had held out for him from his hand and grabbed another from the table. 

“Don’t choke,” Bato responded, his voice filled with mirth. Hakoda paused from stuffing his face and smiled cheekily once again. Shaking his head, Bato moved to leave before Hakoda called behind him.

“Where ya going?” 

Bato turned his head back and smiled. “Turning in for the night. I’ve had my fill of this party.”

Hakoda pouted from where he was standing and Bato laughed. “Stay with me?” His voice was pleading and Bato was weak for when Hakoda looked up at him with his eyes like that. He playfully sighed as if he were thinking it over before responding. 

“Not too long,” he warned and Hakoda smiled before walking up to hug Bato, his arms wrapping around Bato’s body.

“I love you man.”

And that made Bato freeze. His entire body stopped moving, and he thought for a moment he was going to be set on fire as a joke. It’d been such a long time since Hakoda had said those words to him. Usually there were actions that said  _ I love you  _ but he rarely actually spoke the words flat-out like that. 

Bato roughly extracted himself from Hakoda’s embrace. Unable to breathe and seeing Hakoda’s face filled with worry, Bato didn’t know how he managed to leave the ballroom but soon he found himself standing outside the large doors. Doubling over in pain, he coughed up flowers upon flowers. He fell to his knees and felt as if life was actually leaving his body. 

His chest was on fire. His throat felt as though a firebender had placed their hand around his neck and started heating it. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he heard a soft voice beside him and felt a hand come to rub his back. Despite the question, despite how overwhelmingly unaware he was of anything  _ but  _ the flowers in front of him, Bato took a single moment to look over at Hakoda. He looked him in his eyes to see just  _ what  _ was happening between them.

He returned to hacking up flowers and more blood spilled onto the floor and into his hands. As soon as Hakoda was there, he was gone and Bato felt an intense pain rush through his body once again. If this was how he died, he didn’t know if he’d be satisfied. 

He’d lived a full life. But living a full life with flowers in his lungs and with unreciprocated love could dull anyone. 

A groan slipped past his lips as he succumbed to the darkness that had eased its way around his eyes. He succumbed to the darkness that he thought would kill him twenty years earlier. 

When he awoke, he was in a room with red-lined walls, red furniture, and a red bed-spread. 

His voice was raspy and shaky as he spoke, “Red.” He felt the movement to his right and then Hakoda was filling his line of vision. 

Hakoda’s face carried the lines from worrying about the well-being of the world for two years. But there was something  _ new  _ there as well. It seemed as though he was now uniquely, and intimately, worried about Bato. 

That couldn’t be right. Hakoda had never given any indication that he cared about Bato as more than a friend and just because he was looking at him with such intensity right now didn’t change that. 

Right?

“Here,” Hakoda’s voice was firm as he helped Bato sit up gently to have a drink of water. When the aching in his chest had eased, Bato turned his head away to show he no longer needed the cup. 

They sat in tense silence for long moments. Hakoda’s head was facing the floor and Bato was looking anywhere but at him. 

“Why didn’t you  _ tell me  _ Bato?” Hakoda sounded as if he would cry and Bato knew that if he looked over at the man, his eyes would well up with tears as well.

“Why should I have told you Hakoda?” His voice was heavy as he spoke, probably from having coughed up so many flowers, but still it remained even. 

Hakoda scoffed before standing, the sound from the chair scraping the floor making Bato flinch. “You were  _ dying.  _ You were  _ dying  _ and it was because of me?” He was standing at the foot of the bed now and his vicious whisper made Bato want to curl into a hole and never come out. 

The least Hakoda could do if he didn’t love him the same way was let him down easy. Let his death be merciful if he were to ask for one thing. 

“What do you care, Hakoda? It’s not like-” and suddenly he was being cut off. 

“What do I  _ care?”  _ Hakoda sounded as if Bato had just killed his pet tiger-seal. _ “ _ What do I care, he asks. I care a hell of a lot, Bato. I care enough to sit with you for two. Whole. Days. Two days when I didn’t know if you would wake up. Or if I’d ever see your eyes again. Bato I care so fucking much.” 

Bato finally looked Hakoda in his eyes to see just how sincere he was. As much as his livelihood depended on Hakoda saying he loved him, Bato couldn’t bring himself to believe it to be true. 

“No,” he whispered, pain now rising in both his head and his chest. “No,” he repeated, his voice firm. Hakoda turned away to gather himself. 

“You have  _ no idea  _ how much I care for you Bato,” he whispered. “I could barely function being away from you after I left you at the abbey. I couldn’t handle knowing you were in that prison and I couldn’t do anything about it.” Hakoda had moved to stand on Bato’s left side now. One of his hands was lightly touching Bato’s left hand and for the first time in a while, Bato let Hakoda take his hand in his. 

“I care about you so much.” He pleaded, tears now falling from his eyes. “I love you. Spirits I love you so much.” Bato’s hand was lifted to Hakoda’s lips when a soft kiss was placed on the back of it.

He still doesn’t understand what happened. All he knows is that in a moment, the light pain he had been experiencing while Hakoda spoke had intensified tenfold, and he folded his body in on itself. 

And then he blacked out again. 

When he awoke for the second time, he registered all the red again, but he also noted the light feeling in his chest. He took a deep inhale and exhaled for a long beat to test the waters. 

“You have got to stop almost dying on me.” Hakoda looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes and his cheekbones appeared more sunken in than was absolutely normal. 

An unknown voice spoke up in response, “I do have to agree with the Chief, sir.” He turned to his left to find a woman in fire nation red garb who was looking over his body to make sure nothing was wrong. He also spotted Katara sleeping in a corner in a seat behind the woman. 

“She okay?” His voice was hoarse and almost gone. He settled for silence and turned to look at Hakoda who was nodding at him. 

“She did a lot of work on healing you,” Hakoda’s smile was soft and proud. Bato responded with a small smile of his own. 

“Because your condition was so severe,” the woman started. “It’s very important that you don’t stress your vocal cords for the next few weeks. Also refrain from doing hard labor that could put stress on your lungs.” If Bato could groan, he would have. 

No hard labor? That was his entire existence. 

“Thank you,” Hakoda spoke for them both and nodded that she could leave. She responded in kind before turning to leave. Hakoda rose and moved to where his daughter was sleeping. 

“Hey,” he whispered, waking her as he shook her softly. “Hey he’s okay. Go ahead and get some rest.” She was weary, but she looked over at Bato, and he gave her a tight smile which seemed to be reassurance enough. She reached up to hug Hakoda and walked over to hug Bato before leaving the room. 

Now that it was just the two of them, Hakoda seemed as though he was finally able to show just how tired he was. He dragged a hand over his face and heaved a sigh that seemed to come from deep within him. 

Bato watched Hakoda move to sit on the bed next to him. He took Bato’s left hand in his own and played with his fingers. “No more almost dying on me?” He seemed to be laying his entire emotional state bare for Bato to read. 

Sorrow, weariness, love, exhaustion, and grief seemed to all rest on Hakoda’s face and Bato wanted to rid his love’s face of such emotions. 

And for the first time in his life, he was able to. 

Wordlessly, Bato’s right hand came to rest on the back of Hakoda’s neck. He pulled the man down until their lips were touching. The kiss was awkward but not unpleasant. 

Bato kissed Hakoda as if his life depended on it. 

Hakoda kissed Bato as if the entire world could have fallen around them, and he wouldn’t know it.

They breathlessly pulled apart and pressed their foreheads together. 

“I love you,” Hakoda laughed softly. “I love you so much,” he said and kissed Bato again. 

"And I love you." He croaked out the reply and smiled.

The flowers were gone from his chest now. His lungs now filled with _air._ He didn’t cough up petals anymore. And most importantly, he was holding the love of his life in his arms. 

And Hakoda loved him too. 

**Author's Note:**

> This took me so so so long and I deeply apologize for that omg. I've never written a _one shot_ that was more than 3k words? And I somehow did this? I'm so so surprised and happy with myself. Huge shout out to my twitter mutuals that watched me talk about was I gonna kill Bato for three days. Yall are real ones. I hope Bakoda nation loves this one! Comments and Kudos are all appreciated. Again, I hope you enjoyed this! 
> 
> Oh, and check me out on my atla sideblog [here!](https://616hakoda.tumblr.com/)


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